Places that serve he-goat meat and jungle meat in Hoi An belong to the culinary category of quán nhậu (liquor shops): drinking establishments where men consume alcohol and dương (yang) charged dishes, made with ingredients and spices that are considered warming (nong) and libido enhancing (basically animal flesh seasoned with ginger, garlic, and chili, fried and/or rich dishes). In the late 1990s, there were only a few quán nhậu in Hoi An. The most common places where men would drink hol were dingy makeshift sheds set in back alleys serving cheap rice alco-hol (rượu gạo) or beer and chicken or duck rice gruel (cháo gà and cháo vịt), mainly to blue-collar men. Most of my Hoianese friends, members
of the tourism-related nascent middle class, avoided these venues, and the common explanation had to do with the drunkenness of the patrons as well as the coarseness of the food and setting. Male drunkenness was presented as violent and dangerous, especially for women. These culinary establishments were avoided also by those who could afford more refined dining options and locations.
These venues, just like the more elaborate restaurants with which I deal in this chapter, were operated by women. I ate at some of them and observed what I later realized were the general patters of men-to-men and men-to-women interactions in culinary establishments that involved libido and masculinity enhancing foods, excessive consumption of alco-hol, and a measure of social competition. Drinking entailed increasing (or escalating) tensions: competition and challenge among men, which led at times to actual violence; and sexual tension and desire harbored by the men toward the women who operated the stalls. These women were clearly very experienced in handling their clients, making sure that the men paid for their food and drink while keeping them at bay; at the same time—some measure of feminine interest and attraction, or at least, some exchange of sexually charged semi-joking comments were part of the ser-vice. As far as I could tell, these were essentially professional maneuvers by the female owners intended at attracting and maintaining male clientele.
While drunkenness was criticized by almost every Hoianese with whom I discussed this issue, male binge drinking (easily discerned in the flushed faces of the drunk men) was the rule in all major social/ritual gatherings, ancestor worship events, and weddings, and was clearly toler-ated by all those present. As tables in such events were gender segregtoler-ated, most of the drunk interaction was among men, who turned increasingly competitive and abusive the more they drunk. Nasty comments were sometimes exchanged, and wild bursts of laughter became at times angry and abusive. In some cases, drunk men would become violent, but since they were so drunk, this never resulted in more than attempted punches and perhaps a turned-over table. These drunk men were easily overcome by somewhat less drunk companions, who would drag them away.
As public violence was so rare in Hoi An, I was surprised and intrigued when I witnessed such incidents early in my fieldwork. I was surprised by
the violence and intrigued by the setting: though overt violence was very rare in daily public interactions and spheres, it was almost expected in important social rituals, which seemed to me completely inappropriate spaces for such transgression. When I inquired about this public display of what I felt was total breach of proper social conduct, these public acts were dismissed as unimportant. I was told that these men were drunk, which made their lack of control negligible and tolerable. I gradually real-ized that the expression and containment of drunkenness and violence in public events was an elaborate mechanism that allowed the articulation of negative sentiments in public, specifically among relatives and friends, while defining them as petty and insignificant.
Rising incomes set the ground for the proliferation and popularity of ever more sophisticated quán nhậu that offered beer and even imported (or at least bootlegged) alcohol and increasingly more elaborate and exotic dishes. Many of these new places specialized in fish and seafood, while others served the expensive animal flesh attributed with virility, strength, and sexual potency, such as he-goat or that of wild animals. The virility and potency embedded in the flesh of these animals was further exacerbated by the nóng (hot/piquant), libido-enhancing spices such as chili, lemongrass, ginger, and rau răm (Vietnamese coriander).
McNally (2003), Nguyen-vo (2008), and Horton and Rydstrom (2011) address similar establishments, termed karaoke ôm (“hugging karaoke”), where “girls serve food and drinks to customers, select the songs that they wish to sing, and allow the men to touch, hug, and kiss them” (Horton and Rydstrom 2011: 552), suggesting that these venues were practically brothels. While karaoke ôm are extremely common in Vietnam, the local authorities in Hoi An have been very effective in curb-ing them. Quán nhậu differ from karaoke ôm in their emphasis on food and drink rather than karaoke, and in the sexual tone, which is less pronounced.
One of the outcomes of the increasing affluence in Vietnam, and of the booming tourism industry in Hoi An during the last two decades is the emergence of a new socioeconomic elite, composed mostly of suc-cessful business people, as well as high ranking government employees and officials who manage to get a piece of the economic cake, legally and illegally. Many of the members of this new local elite are deeply involved
in conspicuous consumption and use their newly acquired means so as to celebrate and enhance their status. The more affluent purchase cars (rather than the ubiquitous motorbikes), travel to ever more remote and expen-sive destinations abroad, build large mansions and villas with luxurious gardens and pools, and send their children to overseas schools and uni-versities. Bearing in mind that cars, villas, overseas schooling, and expen-sive trips abroad remain too expenexpen-sive for most members of the Hoianese expanding middle class, they tend to invest their newly acquired capital in branded motorbikes, large houses, trips to Southeast Asian countries and universities for their children in Hanoi and Saigon and, perhaps, Singapore.
They are also eager to try new and exotic food in ever more refined set-tings, hence the flourishing and upgrading of quán nhậu. One version is that of restaurants that are set in simple, even coarse setting, but serve high-quality food cooked to order, along with beer and other alcoholic drinks, inclusive of rượu gạo. A more upscale version is that of open-air garden (vườn) restaurants, located at the margins of town, overlooking countryside, river or beach scapes, serving expensive, rare, power, libido and status-enhancing dishes accompanied by local and imported alco-holic drinks. While the cheaper quán nhậu were, and still are, a male-only affair, these new culinary establishments attract couples and even whole families, who uneasily share the culinary space with a majority of male- only groups, often drunk, loud, aggressive, and rude. These establish-ments, like their less sophisticated predecessors in the late 1990s, are mostly owned and managed by women, and employ female waitresses.
The new garden restaurants are also mostly female-run, though many are family businesses, with male family members involved in the operation.
One prominent aspect of contemporary quán nhậu is the employment of gái bia (beer-girls). These women are employed by the beer companies and not by the restaurants, and are paid commission for the beer they sell.
They are provided by the beer companies to the restaurants for free.
However, as the beer-girls’ income depends on the amount of beer con-sumed rather than the food eaten, they “push” beer rather than food, hence the structural tension between the restaurant owners, who are eager to use free manpower but boast and profit from the food they cook (Avieli 2012a). The beer-girls usually dress in very daring and sexy outfits,
at least by Hoianese standards, wear heavy makeup and offer a variety of services to their male costumers beyond the actual serving of food and drinks: they pour the drinks, light cigarettes, wipe the customers’ faces with cold towels, feed them, and even sit on their laps. They often drink and smoke with the clients, flirt with them, and allow different measures of physical contact. At least some of them engage in paid sex, while others double as kept mistresses. Gái bia are considered in Hoi An a notch above gái ôm (“hugging girls” or sex workers). Arguing that someone is a gái bia is a serious insult and admitting that one’s relative is one is very embarrassing.
Women, be it beer-girls waitresses or lovers, have a pivotal role in the process of masculinity enhancement that takes place in quán nhậu: they encourage the consumption of dương (yang), nóng (warming) dishes, and alcohol and excite their clients with a combination of feminine submis-sion (lighting cigarettes, wiping sweat, using respectful female grammar, and childlike, high-pitched tone) and assertive sexuality (dressing dar-ingly, drinking, smoking, and flirting). These women are also the target of the resulting excessive masculinity: they allow their clients different measure of physical contact and, ultimately, if having sex with them, lit-erally incorporate the excessive dương (male energy), serving as receptive utensils into which this excess is ejaculated.